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Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History

J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton (1878-1961) and Hamilton Hall

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In 1972, the university named its new social science building for J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton. During his tenure as head of the history department from 1908 to 1930, Hamilton made it a leading center for the study of the South. His own research focused on Reconstruction and praised the role of the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that it saved North Carolina from the corrupt and incompetent rule of blacks and carpetbaggers. In 1936, Hamilton left teaching to travel across the South in search of manuscripts relevant to southern history. The letters, diaries, and other papers he gathered became the foundation of the Southern Historical Collection, now the world's largest repository of southern historical documents.